Afternoon summary
- MPs have been told that concern amongst NHS managers about there being a second coronavirus wave in the UK is “very high”. (See 2.42pm.) The warning was delivered as the UK recorded a further 83 coronavirus deaths, with the figures confirming that the UK death toll has stopped falling and is now rising again - although only very marginally. (See 5.43pm.)
- Sir Keir Starmer has urged the government to use testing to reduce the need for people arriving in the UK from certain countries to quarantine for a full 14 days. (See 4.34pm.) But Oliver Dowden, the culture secretary, has said that testing passengers for Covid-19 on arrival in the UK is “not a silver bullet”.
- Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, has confirmed that further countries could be included in the UK’s quarantine measures. Speaking to reporters on his return home from Spain (he only started his holiday there at the weekend, but decided to come back early after the quarantine announcement on Saturday night), Shapps said
We absolutely have to act the moment we get the information and that’s exactly what happened with Spain, as we saw and as we’ve seen over the weekend, where there were over 6,100 cases - the highest since the peak in March over there. It was the right thing to do and it’s why the whole of the UK did [it] at the same time. I can’t therefore rule out other countries having to go into the quarantine as well.
At a meeting this afternoon the UK government was discussing quarantine with the devolved administrations, amid speculation that Belgium, Luxembourg and Croatia will be added to the list. Shapps also said that, although the government considered exempting the Canary and Balearic islands from the quarantine applied to Spain, the chief medical officer, Prof Chris Whitty, was strongly against. Shapps said:
We did have a look at whether certain islands could be included [on the list] and not others. Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, was very clear with us that he was concerned about the data, we’d seen how the data had come very fast forward in Spain in 20, 48 hours, it had gone up by 75%. It had doubled in just a few days. He was concerned to see what was happening in the islands and that’s why we make it a whole-country approach in these things.
- But the National Trust has said it will cut up to 1,200 jobs. (See 5.30pm.)
That’s all from me for today.
Our coronavirus coverage continues on our global coronavirus live blog. It’s here.
Updated
The updates today on the government’s coronavirus data dashboard also show that the number of coronavirus cases continues to rise.
On 1 July the seven-day rolling average for cases was 711.1, but then it fell and stayed below 700, falling as low as 546.1 on 5 July. But today for the first time since 1 July the seven-day average on the website has gone over 700 again. It was 725.7 on 26 July, the most recent figure for which a seven-day average has been published. And the number of cases for today is 763.
UK records further 83 coronavirus deaths - as seven-day average death toll continues to nudge up
The UK has recorded a further 83 coronavirus deaths, according to today’s update on the government’s coronavirus data dashboard. The official headline total for deaths is now 45,961.
This is a Public Health England figure for the UK as a whole. But, confusingly, the Department of Health and Social Care has given up publishing this figure as part of its only daily update, because it no longer views it as reliable.
The PHE figure is suspect because it includes people in England who tested positive for coronavirus and died - even if they died of something else.
But the main problem with the headline total is that it is an underestimate because it does not include people who died from coronavirus without testing positive. When these deaths are included, total UK coronavirus deaths are more than 55,000.
Today’s dashboard also confirms that the UK death toll has stopped falling and is now rising again - although only very marginally. (See 1.48pm.) On 26 July, the most recent day for which a figure is given on the dashboard, the seven-day rolling average for deaths was 65.7. Yesterday it was 65.1. The figure for 20 July was 62.1.
Updated
National Trust plans to cut 1,200 jobs as result of Covid crisis
The National Trust has announced that it may have to cut 1,200 jobs because of the income it has lost as a result of coronavirus. Staff were told today. In a statement the charity said:
The National Trust is proposing £100m of annual savings following the impact of the coronavirus crisis, after warning almost every aspect of its income has been affected.
The Trust expects to lose up to £200m this year as a result of the pandemic, and is today proposing spending plans that include a possible 1,200 redundancies as it seeks to reduce its annual spend and the size of its workforce ...
As part of the review, the trust hopes to save £100m – almost a fifth of its annual spend - through changing the way it operates and reducing its payroll and budgets.
Nearly 40% of the proposed savings (£40m) will be non-pay spending cuts, including reducing travel and office costs, reducing marketing and print spend in favour of digital, renegotiating contracts, reducing IT spend and introducing more efficient processes to manage key areas of the charity.
As PA Media reports, the 1,200 jobs that may go as part of £60m pay savings represent around 13% of the 9,500-strong salaried workforce. The move, which comes after a decade during which the National Trust nearly doubled in size, would bring staffing levels back to what they were in 2016.
Updated
“Hundreds” of people have turned up to a town’s Covid-19 walk-in centre after pub-goers were urged to get tested following the confirmation of 10 positive cases, PA Media reports.
Health chiefs asked people who had been working or drinking at the Crown & Anchor in Stone, Staffordshire, on July 16, 17, and 18 to get tested, after an outbreak linked to the premises.
One individual who tested positive from the pub then attended a private social gathering, further spreading the virus, Staffordshire county council said.
Following the outbreak, a walk-in centre for people without Covid-19 symptoms opened in the Crown Street car park for the first time today, and is due to open again on Friday, from 10am until 5pm.
Tests are free and no appointment is necessary but people are being asked to try to space out their visits.
A resident, who did not want to be named, described queues of people at the centre, adding: “Hundreds of people have already been down there, and it only opened this morning.”
Matt Hancock, the health secretary, says 72,000 people have signed up to say they are available to take part in coronavirus research. You can sign up here.
THANK YOU to the 72,000 people for signing up to the NHS COVID-19 vaccine research registry in 1 week.
— Matt Hancock (@MattHancock) July 29, 2020
To help further in our national effort to protect the NHS & find a vaccine, visit:https://t.co/U3zA9FmY4s
Photograph: Phil Noble/Reuters
The latest Guardian Politics Weekly podcast is out. This week Jonathan Freedland and Jessica Elgot discuss the latest from Westminster. Peter Walker talks to Lib Dem leadership candidate Ed Davey. Plus, Rajeev Syal talks to Dave Penman of the FDA union about the problems between this government and the civil service.
Starmer urges government to use testing to reduce time needed for quarantine
Sir Keir Starmer has been visiting Falmouth in Cornwall today, highlighting the employment problems facing areas reliant on tourism. (See 9.32am.) His itinerary even included a trip to the beach although (like Gordon Brown on these occasions), there was no dressing down, and Starmer stuck to a suit.
The Labour leader said he supported what the recent changes announced by the government to quarantine rules. He said:
We do support measures being taken to quarantine. It’s really unfortunate for those that are in other countries. I really feel for them. But it is necessary that we take all preventative measures to prevent a second spike.
But, interestingly, he also urged the government to cut the time needed for quarantine by combining it with testing. He explained:
There is some evidence that [quarantine] could be shortened to 10 or nine days. But that depends on really effective testing, and that is why we’ve pushed the government so hard on testing. There’s the capacity to test. The government needs to use that to test on arrival, and then after a short interval, because if that period of 14 days can be brought down to eight, nine or 10, then obviously there’s a huge benefit in that.
Starmer seemed to be referring to the recent report published by the the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) saying that quarantining people for eight days on arrival from the EU and testing them on day seven, with a 24-hour turnaround in test results, could reduce the number of infectious people re-entering the community by 94%, compared with no quarantine or testing.
Here is the report (pdf). And here is an extract from its conclusion.
While a 14-day quarantine will likely prevent most transmission from travellers, an eight-day quarantine (with testing on day seven) can capture as many infectious persons in approximately half the time. Testing passengers is resource-intensive but presents a way to either further reduce risks or allow a shorter quarantine at the same level of risk, particularly for arrival from countries with widespread Sars-CoV-2 transmission.
Starmer was right to say the government does have spare testing capacity available. The figures are published on the daily dashboard and, while the government has the ability to carry out more than 300,000 tests per day, according to the most recent figures, less than a third of that was being used.
Updated
Nicola Sturgeon's coronavirus briefing - summary
Here are the main points from Nicola Sturgeon’s press briefing earlier.
- Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, said that she did not want to give anyone “false hope” about the pace at which restrictions could be lifted. She said:
I want to give people hope. I think there’s a lot right now that should give all of us hope. It’s been painful, it’s been hard, but we’ve got this virus to really low levels.
But I don’t do my job, I don’t discharge my responsibilities and ultimately I don’t do anybody any favours if I give false hope, or if I get so desperate, as I am to get everybody back to normal, that I forget about the risks that we face, and then I’m standing here in a few weeks and we’re going backwards.
This seemed like a clear attempt to draw a contrast with Boris Johnson, who is temperamentally prone to favour optimism over realism. (This was particularly apparent the week before last, when he said it might be possible to abandon social distancing from November, although with coronavirus cases rising across Europe, his more recent comments have been more negative about the prospects of an early return to normality.)
- She said her biggest worry was people getting “a bit lax” about social distancing rules. She said:
My biggest concern right now is that there are things that all of us can do to keep this under control that we’re all maybe getting a bit lax at doing.
- She said the Scottish and UK governments could be taking part in a four-nations meeting this afternoon at which possible changes to quarantine rules would be discussed. (See 1.07pm.)
- She rejected claims that she was using her daily coronavirus briefings for party political advantage. She said she used them to focus on public health messaging, and sought to avoid talking about party politics at the briefings. When it was put to her that she did comment on party political matters, she replied:
Sometimes one person’s political issue is another person’s very legitimate issue, part and parcel of dealing with Covid. And the fiscal flexibility of the government to deal with the overall consequences of Covid [an issue raised by the reporter] I would put into the latter category.
- She urged the UK government to extend the furlough scheme beyond October. (See 1.04pm.)
- She said the small increase in Scotland’s weekly coronavirus death toll was “regrettable and very unwelcome”. (See 12.40pm.)
Updated
Concern about second spike 'very high' among NHS managers, MPs told
The all-party parliamentary group on coronavirus, which is chaired by the Lib Dem MP Layla Moran, is holding its own inquiry into the lessons to be learnt from coronavirus, and today it has holding its first oral evidence session. Niall Dickson, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents NHS leaders, told the group that NHS managers were very worried about a second wave. He said:
I would say in relation to the second spike issue or something coming, the levels of concern among our members - the people who are leading NHS trusts, who are leading in primary care and all levels in the systems - is very high.
I mean, of course, there’s real concern about winter and the compounding factors there, but also about an earlier spike.
We have already mentioned exhausted staff [and] we are already trying to rebuild other services.
Updated
Public Health Wales has recorded a further five coronavirus deaths. The details are here.
The latest number of confirmed cases of Coronavirus in Wales has been updated.
— Public Health Wales (@PublicHealthW) July 29, 2020
Data dashboard:
💻 https://t.co/zpWRYSUbfh
📱 https://t.co/HSclxpZjBh
Find out how we are responding to the spread of the virus in our daily statement here: https://t.co/u6SKHz0zsG pic.twitter.com/AsrRrl54rI
But there have been no further deaths in Scotland (details here) or in Northern Ireland (details here).
NHS England has recorded a further 14 coronavirus hospital deaths. The people who died were aged between 55 and 90 and all but two of them had underlying health conditions, it says. The full details are here.
Scotland’s largest hotels will be able to apply for £14m in emergency coronavirus funding which ministers hope will secure up to 3,000 jobs until next year’s tourism season.
Fergus Ewing, the Scottish tourism secretary, said major hotels would be able to apply for grants of up to £250,000 through enterprise agencies. “Scotland is home to many of the world’s iconic hotels and they, like much of the sector, have suffered considerably this year from the impacts of coronavirus,” he said.
The funding follows other large subsidies and bailouts for businesses and tourism industry from both the UK and Scottish governments; Ewing said another £1m would be distributed by Visit Scotland, the tourism agency, for self-catering firms which had missed out on previous bailouts.
The scheme will raise some eyebrows given many of Scotland’s major hotels are part of multinational chains, backed by global investment companies. The £14m fund will involve £9m towards day-to-day spending but also £5m for capital projects such as refurbishments and building programmes.
Updated
With Scotland recording a small increase in its weekly coronavirus death toll, as measured by National Records of Scotland (see 12.25pm), it is worth pointing out that the UK death toll has also stopped falling - and is increasingly very marginally - on the seven-day rolling average measure.
The average is published on the government’s dashboard. It hit its lowest point on 20 July, when the seven-day rolling average was 62.1 deaths. But by 25 July, the most recent day for which the figure has been posted on the website, the seven-day rolling average was 65.1.
In an article for the Guardian two professors of epidemiology, David Hunter from Oxford University and Neil Pearce from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, argue that Britain could eliminate coronavirus, but only by getting people to give up on air travel.
Here’s an extract.
A bold elimination goal would require further strengthening of the test, track and isolate system with clear, transparent and spin-free reporting of its successes and failures. The release of data to local public health authorities is a welcome first step. It would entail income support for people who are asked to self-isolate, and consideration of supervised hotel accommodation for those who represent a risk to their families.
It would also require abandoning the troubled air bridge system – the deficiencies of which are becoming increasingly clear. So, for British people planning their summer holidays, it would mean replacing trips abroad with UK travel. Of course, international airlines will need subsidies to avoid bankruptcy; it would also mean that lorries arriving in the UK would be driven to their destinations by British drivers.
All this is a big ask.
But the prize is huge. It would mean a relatively normal internal economy, with domestic tourists replacing international ones. The prize is getting children back to school; releasing our aged population from home isolation or confinement in care homes; protecting our black and minority-ethnic communities; revitalising the arts and sport. And a reduction in the probability of a second wave in the winter, crippling the NHS and requiring a second national lockdown.
And here is the full article.
Updated
Sturgeon says she regrets anyone feeling let down by what happened in care homes.
She says Covid has forced some adaptions that should have happened earlier, such as the wider use of video consultations with doctors.
She says tomorrow she will be making a statement to the Scottish parliament about the next steps being taken in terms of easing the lockdown.
And that’s it. The Scottish government briefing is over.
Q: Do you have any concerns about students from other parts of the UK or from overseas coming to Scotland, if they are coming from places with higher rates of coronavirus?
Sturgeon says Scotland wants students from other countries. But it will be discussing the risks with universities, and then seeing what can be done to mitigate those risks.
Sturgeon says her biggest concern is people 'getting a bit lax' over coronavirus
Q: The opposition parties at Holyrood have been complaining about the fact that these briefings are broadcast. They say they are party political. Do they have a point?
Sturgeon says she is a reasonable person. She thinks people watching can make their own judgments as to whether she is using them as a party political platform. Sometimes she refuses to answer political questions. But she says people will decide for themselves whether answering a question about Covid amounts to making a political point.
She says her biggest concern is that people are “getting a bit lax”.
She says being able to look down the camera and give people the advice needed to keep this under control is important. It is up to the broadcasters what they do, she says. But this is in the public interest, she says.
Updated
Asked about the Care Home Scandal, a documentary shown on TV in Scotland last night, Sturgeon says it breaks her heart, and deeply upsets her, to think of what happened in care homes. She says it is important not to be defensive, because of the need to learn from what went wrong.
She says it is possible that “straightforward mistakes” were made.
But she says some of the discussion of what happened in care homes is based on knowledge that we have now that was not available then.
Some of the people being discharged from hospital were well, she says. And having them stay in a hospital, when the hospitals were about to fill up with coronavirus patients, may not have been the best thing, she says.
She says there was a fear that hospitals would be overwhelmed. Thankfully that did not happen, she says. But she says that does not mean this was not a possibility.
Sturgeon says potential changes to quarantine rules to be discussed at four nations meeting later
Q: There are reports the UK government could impose quarantine on arrivals from Belgium, Luxembourg and Croatia. (See 11.57am.) Would you support that?
Sturgeon says she will not comment on particular countries. But she says there is a four nations discussion later today on this topic (ie, a discussion involving England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) and she says she expects this to be discussed at that meeting.
Updated
Sturgeon urges UK government to extend furlough scheme beyond October
Sturgeon says the furlough scheme should not end prematurely. There are other countries that have extended their versions of the scheme well beyond October (when the UK one will end), and into next year. It should be extended, even if just for certain sectors.
Sturgeon says she would like to be able to give people hope about the prospects of restrictions being lifted. But she would not be doing her job if she gave people false hope, she says. She says she has to be cautious. Her priority is ensuring children can return to school, she says.
She says if the government takes the wrong decisions in the wrong order, it will make the situation worse.
The recovery has to be sustainable, she says.
She says there are umpteen examples of countries that thought they were out of this, and that opened up their economy, only to have to close it down again. She wants to ensure that does not happen in Scotland, she says.
Q: There is a report out today saying capacity for cancer surgery in Scotland will be running at about 60% of normal for the next two years. What is your response?
Sturgeon says urgent treatment should go ahead.
Prof Fiona McQueen, the chief nursing officer for Scotland, who is also at the briefing, repeats Sturgeon’s point about how urgent surgery should still be able to go ahead.
She says the NHS in Scotland is trying to ensure its capacity is being used fully, and that people are getting the treatment they need.
She says not all treatments are urgent. But urgent treatments should go ahead, she says.
Updated
Q: When will large weddings be allowed to go ahead?
Sturgeon says she will give a general update to the Scottish parliament tomorrow on lockdown rules.
She says there is “limited headroom”. If she were to relax the rules too much, that might jeopardise the chances of children being able to go back to school in August.
She says the Scottish cabinet discussed these issues this morning. The government has to make an overall assessment, she says.
Sturgeon says she will not judge people who are going on holiday. (Yesterday she spent much of her briefing all but telling people not to go abroad.) But she wants to ensure that, if people do go abroad, they are aware of the risks, she says.
She says she would choose to go on holiday in Scotland. But that would just be a personal decision, she says.
Sturgeon says small increase in Scotland's weekly death toll 'regrettable and very unwelcome'
In her opening statement at her regular coronavirus press briefing Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, said the prevalence of coronavirus in Scotland remained low. But she said the small increase in the weekly death toll was “regrettable and very unwelcome”. (See 12.25pm.)
NS: "I want to say just a word or two more about the fact that the number of Covid deaths rose very slightly last week, especially given that we reported no deaths at all over that period in our daily figures."
— The SNP (@theSNP) July 29, 2020
NS: "Four of the eight deaths reported by NRS were in hospital. Two were in care homes. Two were in other settings - for example, at home."
— The SNP (@theSNP) July 29, 2020
NS: "The reason why the 4 deaths in hospital weren't captured by our daily figures is that these daily figures, as I've mentioned already today, record people who have died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid."
— The SNP (@theSNP) July 29, 2020
NS: "However, some people who test positive receive care for more than 28 days afterwards, but sadly, some of them don't manage to recover."
— The SNP (@theSNP) July 29, 2020
NS: "If these people die after the initial 28 days, but have Covid recorded on the death certificate as a contributory factor, then they would be included in the NRS report but not in the daily figures."
— The SNP (@theSNP) July 29, 2020
NS: "That's to give you an assurance that all deaths associated with Covid are being captured and reported, between our daily figures and the National Records of Scotland report."
— The SNP (@theSNP) July 29, 2020
NS: "I want to make just two more general points about today's figures. First, obviously, any increase in deaths, however small it might be, is regrettable and very unwelcome."
— The SNP (@theSNP) July 29, 2020
NS: "But when we have very low levels, as thankfully we do right now, fluctuation is to be expected. However the second point is this one."
— The SNP (@theSNP) July 29, 2020
NS: "These figures are a reminder of the continuing impact of the pandemic, and how, despite the progress we have undoubtedly made, we should never underestimate how cruel a virus this can be."
— The SNP (@theSNP) July 29, 2020
Updated
Scotland records small increase in weekly coronavirus death toll
Scotland recorded eight deaths from Covid-19 last week, an increase in two from the previous week but the second lowest seven-day total since early March, the statistics agency National Records of Scotland has said.
The weekly data, which covers all deaths with Covid-19 on the death certificate including those in the community where there was no positive Covid-19 test result, follows 15 days where there were no deaths in Scottish hospitals in confirmed cases.
Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister, said at her briefing that no new deaths had been recorded in confirmed patients overnight, but there were 22 positive cases yesterday, with 14 recorded in the greater Glasgow area suggesting a new cluster had emerged.
Sturgeon said there were only two people in intensive care, with no new Covid-19 admissions to intensive care since 9 July. That was another positive indicator the severity of the pandemic had lessened greatly in Scotland.
NRS said the proportion of Covid-19 cases of all fatalities fell to 1% in the week ending Sunday 26 July, leaving an overall total of 4,201 deaths attributed to the pandemic since the first recorded death in early March. At the peak of the pandemic, it accounted for 36% of all deaths in the week of 20 to 26 April.
The agency said a large majority of those deaths were amongst the oldest patients. From 16 March to 26 July, there were 32% more deaths than average in over 85s of which 21% involved Covid-19; there were 27% excess deaths in those 75 to 84, of which 19% were Covid-19; and 15% excess deaths amongst those 65-74, with 14% attributed to Covid-19.
Sturgeon is expected to announce a further but limited loosening of lockdown and social distancing rules tomorrow in the Scottish parliament.
The MRC Biostatistics Unit at Cambridge University, which is one of several teams around the country producing estimates of R number for coronavirus (the reproduction number, showing the extent to which it is spreading), has published new figures today. They are here.
It says R is “close to 1 in most regions of England” and that in the south-east and the south-west it is likely to be above one.
The report also says that the number of new infections each day in England is estimated to be 3,000 and that by mid August the number of deaths each day in England is expected to be running at between 43 and 84.
The government publishes its own estimate for R every Friday (based on research by about 10 different teams, including the MRC Biostatistics Unit). Last week it had R for England at between 0.8 and 1.
Updated
Belgium, Luxembourg and Croatia may join Spain on England’s Covid-19 quarantine list
Travellers returning to England from Belgium and Luxembourg could have quarantine restrictions reimposed in the next two days, as ministers grapple to contain any fresh threat from a potential second wave of coronavirus in some European countries, my colleague Jessica Elgot reports. Ministers are understood to be closely monitoring spikes in the number of cases in Belgium and Luxembourg, as well as in Croatia, a more popular holiday destination for British tourists.
Jessica’s full story is here.
Global Justice Now, the international social justice campaign organisation, has criticised the government deal announced this morning to secure 60m doses of a potential coronavirus vaccine from GSK and Sanofi Pasteur. It says the UK is contributing to “a dangerous trend of vaccine nationalism by richer nations”. In a statement Heidi Chow, a spokesperson for the group, said:
The government’s race to secure vaccine deals makes a mockery of its own rhetoric on equitable global access to Covid-19 vaccines. This UK-first approach is fuelling a dangerous scramble with rich countries hoarding initial vaccine supplies, leaving poorer countries without. Ensuring fair access is not just a matter of equity but it is the fastest way to end this global pandemic and the government should be supporting global fair allocation based on public health needs rather that trying to win a self-defeating race of who can hoard the fastest.
Updated
The Labour MP Chris Bryant thinks the government should be testing people for coronavirus when they arrive in the UK.
One thing that still mystifies me is why we are not testing people at the border, and if necessary seven days later. We don’t even check people’s temperature!
— Chris Bryant (@RhonddaBryant) July 29, 2020
As my colleague Simon Murphy reports, in one of his morning interviews Oliver Dowden, the culture secretary, said testing people on arrival at airports would not be a “silver bullet” because people can test negative while they are incubating the virus.
The tour operator Tui has extended the suspension of holidays to the Balearic Islands and Canary Islands for UK customers until 4 August, PA Media reports. It had previously cancelled trips up to and including Friday. Holidays to mainland Spain remain cancelled until 10 August.
The tour operator will increase flights to Greece and Turkey this weekend to enable more affected customers to switch their destinations.
Updated
Here is the job advert for the new post of spokesperson for the prime minister mentioned earlier. (See 10.14am.)
No 10 to advertise for spokesperson to front planned daily TV press briefings
Downing Street will today be posting an online advert for the new spokesperson post it is creating for the person who will take the daily televised press briefings it plans to start holding in the autumn. According to the Daily Telegraph (paywall), the advert will say No 10 is looking for “an experienced and confident media operator who would enjoy working on camera and with senior ministers, political advisers, officials and journalists; who would relish the challenge and pace of televised briefings, and who has a strong grasp of foreign and domestic policy issues”. And it will say:
The successful candidate will become a trusted political adviser to the prime minister and member of the senior team at Downing Street, reporting into the prime minister’s director of communications.
You will represent the government and the prime minister to an audience of millions on a daily basis, across the main broadcast channels and social media, and have the chance to influence and shape public opinion.
You will speak directly to the public on the issues they care most about, explaining the government’s position, reassuring people that we are taking action on their priorities and driving positive changes.
Updated
English care homes policy 'reckless', MPs say
Advising hospitals to discharge thousands of patients into care homes without knowing if they had coronavirus was a “reckless” and “appalling” policy error, the Commons public accounts committee has said.
Here is the committee’s report (pdf). And here is an extract from its summary.
Years of inattention, funding cuts and delayed reforms have been compounded by the government’s slow, inconsistent and, at times, negligent approach to giving the sector the support it needed during the pandemic. This is illustrated by the decision to discharge 25,000 patients from hospitals into care homes without making sure all were first tested for Covid-19, a decision that remained in force even after it became clear people could transfer the virus without ever having symptoms.
Reflecting on the government’s response to the pandemic so far, we are also particularly concerned by its failure to provide adequate PPE for the social care sector and testing to the millions of staff and volunteers who risked their lives to help us through the first peak of the crisis. The government needs to work urgently now to ensure that there is enough capacity – including both testing and PPE – and continued support for staff and volunteers so we are ready for future Covid peaks.
There are many lessons that the government must learn, not least giving adult social care equal support to the NHS and considering them as two parts of a single system, adequately funded and with clear accountability arrangements. No one would expect government to get every decision right first time round during such an emergency. Rather than seeking to give the impression that it has done so, the government urgently needs to reflect, acknowledge its mistakes, and learn from them as well as from what has worked.
Updated
Good morning. I’m Andrew Sparrow, taking over from Ben Quinn.
Sir Keir Starmer is visiting Falmouth today. As my colleague Simon Murphy reports, the Labour leader is calling for the furlough scheme to be extended for particular sectors of the economy hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic. One of those is tourism.
Labour says that “areas with a larger share of the local workforce in tourism industries have on average seen larger rises in the claimant count of unemployment since February”. To illustrate this point, it has sent out this chart, showing how the rise in the claimant count since February has been higher in ares where a higher proportion of the workforce is employed in tourism.
Arts venues may not find out until the autumn whether they can reopen without the current social distancing measures, according to the culture secretary, Oliver Dowden.
He also told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the “vast majority” of the government’s arts rescue package will be awarded “over the summer” but said venues should reach out sooner if they are “on the verge of going under”.
On social distancing, he said:
The prime minister said a couple of weeks ago when we get to November we will look again at social distancing and where we are with the spread of the virus.
We can’t give a stronger commitment because, as we’re seeing, the virus is rising in other countries around the world.
Updated
One of the Scottish government’s top advisors on Covid-19, public health professor Devi Sridhar, has written a piece for the Guardian today in which she makes an appeal for greater collective agency.
Prof Sridhar, chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, writes:
Infectious disease outbreaks reveal how each of us is only as healthy as our neighbour, as the person we sit next to on the bus, and as the strangers we shop with in a supermarket.
She also writes that the first wave of cases may teach Britain useful lessons for how it deals with future outbreaks, both of coronavirus and of influenza and the common cold.
That includes ending the culture of people “soldiering on and coming into work when they’re unwell”.
One survey from 2015 showed that 58% of managers didn’t think having flu was a valid excuse to skip work, writes Prof Sridhar.
This problem extends to schools and childcare facilities; some 63% of parents admitted sending unwell children to school because of workload pressures, according to one 2018 study. To prevent future outbreaks, the government should provide support and incentives so that symptomatic children and adults can stay home without suffering financially.
Sridhar is also quoted in a new piece in an international edition of Der Spiegel in which she argues that the rest of Europe should apply Scotland’s “zero Covid” strategy, which aims to completely eliminate the virus within the country’s borders.
She tells Der Spiegel:
The heads of state and government from the Schengen area would have to get together and decide: “Let’s get rid of this virus together!” As soon as the cases have dropped to zero, people could again move freely and safely within Europe’s borders - provided that we then test and temporarily quarantine all those people who enter from other regions of the world.
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It’s time for a “continuous systematic review” of what has become apparent during the pandemic, tweets Richard Horton, the editor-in-chief of the Lancet.
Boris Johnson refuses a public inquiry to learn lessons from COVID-19. But public inquiries are taking place—Select Committees, IPPR, Marmot on London Bus Drivers, scientific research, journalism (Sunday Times, Panorama). Time for a continuous systematic review of this evidence.
— richard horton (@richardhorton1) July 29, 2020
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Britons should continue to book holidays but be aware of risk, says minister
People should continue to book holidays but “need to be aware of the risk that quarantine could be imposed,” culture secretary Oliver Dowden also said this morning
“But as long as people are aware of that risk they should continue to book holidays, but just bear in mind that this may happen, and sadly it has happened in Spain,” he told BBC Breakfast.
Asked where else the government might be considering for quarantine restrictions, Dowden said:
I do genuinely understand people’s anxiety and frustration about it and, believe me, from friends and family and people I meet on the street, everyone is asking this question.
Inevitably what we have to do is analyse the situation in countries around the world. Where we feel there is too high a degree of risk – where the incidence of the disease is rising in another country and we risk that import – we have to take measures.
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No 'viable alternative' to 14-day quarantine available yet, says culture secretary
The government continues to look at all alternatives but it is not at a point where there is a viable alternative to the 14 day quarantine, according to the culture secretary Oliver Dowden. Responding to the argument made by John Holland-Kaye, the Heathrow airport chief executive, for testing to be used as an alternative (see 8.33am), Dowden told the Today programme:
I do understand his frustration and his desire for us not to impose quarantine. If we could imposing quarantine in a way that it was safe to do so then of course we would do. That is why we keep it under review.
We are not at the point where there is a viable alternative to the 14-day quarantine.
There is a real risk here - the virus is spreading around the world, it’s rising rapidly around the world.
We need to ensure that the measures we’ve taken in the UK - which have been very difficult - to keep this virus under control, do not go to waste because we allow cases to come in from elsewhere.
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Heathrow urges government to introduce tests to reduce quarantine measures
Heathrow Airport has urged the UK government to stop imposing “quarantine roulette” on travellers as it announced a pre-tax loss of 1.1 billion in the first six months of the year.
Chief executive John Holland-Kaye said the financial results “should serve as a clarion call” to ministers to introduce a scheme for coronavirus testing of arriving passengers.
He wants the 14-day self-isolation requirement to be eased for people arriving from countries not on the Government’s exemption list if they test negative for the virus.
The comments come after Boris Johnson warned that further European nations could lose their exempted status amid signs of a “second wave” of Covid-19 and after the UK triggered a diplomatic row with Spain by reimposing a warning against all but essential travel to the country and insisting that travellers arriving in the UK from there spend 14 days in quarantine.
Heathrow’s passenger numbers were down 96% year on year between April and June. It made a pre-tax loss of £1.1bn in the first six months of 2020, down from a £7m profit in the same period a year ago. This came on revenue of £712m, around half of 2019’s levels.
Holland-Kaye said:
Today’s results should serve as a clarion call for the government - the UK needs a passenger testing regime and fast. Without it, Britain is just playing a game of quarantine roulette.
As many of our customers have experienced, it’s difficult to plan a holiday that way, let alone run a business. Testing offers a way to safely open up travel and trade to some of the UK’s biggest markets which currently remain closed.
There’s more on our business blog about the continuing financial fall-out from the pandemic.
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Britain’s employers are struggling to convince workers that it is safe to return to the office, according to a report in the Times ahead of the end next week of the government’s “work from home” guidance.
The paper quotes Mark Read, chief executive of WPP, the advertising company and an employer of 10,000 people in the UK, who said: “It’s a challenge ensuring our people feel safe commuting into work and being in an office.”
Around one per cent of WPP’s workforce is back, adds read, who says: “We don’t expect significant numbers back any time soon.”
On the same issue, the Observer had this piece based on the thoughts of two workers, an epidemiologist and a psychologist, who explored the highs and lows of returning to the office post-lockdown.
Young people are at the forefront of an uptick in coronavirus infections in parts of Europe according to the regional director for Europe of the World Health Organisation, Dr Hans Kluger.
He’s speaking at the moment on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, where he says that rising infections could prefigure a return to community transmission in many countries.
The public should ready for “scaling up” measures, he adds, though it should be locally-led.
But he is cautiously optimistic though, and takes Italy as an example of a country which isn’t in the position now that it might have been.
Household food waste in the UK has increased by nearly a third as coronavirus lockdown restrictions have been eased and could spiral further, new research has warned.
The government’s waste advisory body, Wrap, said self-reported food waste was up by 30%, reversing progress made at the start of the pandemic as consumers threw away less food while confined to their homes.
While concerns about going to the shops and running out of food motivated people to waste less in April, their resolve appears to be weakening as restrictions have lifted.
Wrap carried out two phases of research during lockdown. In the first phase in April, consumers reported a reduction in wasted food compared with before lockdown. However, its June update reveals that levels of wasted food have begun to rebound
UK studies exploring Covid-19 links with ethnicity
Specially tailored public health messaging, the impact of structural racism and whether healthcare workers should be redeployed are among research projects that have been given funding to explore the link between Covid-19 and ethnicity.
More than £4m has been awarded to six projects that will help researchers explain and mitigate the disproportionate death rates from coronavirus among people from black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds.
The grants are from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), and the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR).
One of the projects, which receives £371,000, aims to design culturally relevant health messages for minority communities. The study, led by Prof Aftab Ala, the Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust, and Kings College hospital, comes amid concern that cultural and language barriers in accessing health could have contributed to the rise in coronavirus infections in Leicester.
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The UK government’s travel restrictions and the rise of Covid-19 infections in continential Europe dominate many of today’s front pages
Wednesday's FT: Europe fights coronavirus spike as lockdowns ease and tourism grows #TomorrowsPapersToday #FT #FinancialTimes pic.twitter.com/puyyX8ySZY
— Tomorrow's Papers Today (@TmorrowsPapers) July 28, 2020
Tomorrow’s Telegraph front page: “Heathrow boss calls
— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) July 28, 2020
for tests at airports”#TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/mHyRldnNox
Wednesday's Guardian: Huge growth in free school meals urged to tackle food poverty crisis #TomorrowsPapersToday #TheGuardian #Guardian pic.twitter.com/n0oRdN2uKS
— Tomorrow's Papers Today (@TmorrowsPapers) July 28, 2020
The Times 29/07/20
— The Times Pictures (@TimesPictures) July 28, 2020
Stuart Broad became only the seventh bowler to take 500 Test wickets as England clinched a series victory over West Indies yesterday. Photo : Gareth Copley/Getty Images. #tomorrowspaperstoday #thetimes #buyapaper @thetimes pic.twitter.com/nPM48aTbAx
Testing travellers a week after their arrival in the UK could catch 94% of coronavirus cases and halve quarantine times, scientific modelling has suggested, as ministers consider proposals to reduce the 14-day self-isolation for those coming from high-risk countries.
Boris Johnson said on Tuesday that Europe was beginning to experience a second wave of Covid-19 infections, increasing the pressure to find measures to prevent the spread of cases to the UK.
The UK government advised against all non-essential travel to Spain on Saturday and, with just a few hours’ warning, imposed a 14-day quarantine for those arriving from the country, plunging holidaymakers and the tourism industry into disarray.
Johnson said during a visit to Nottinghamshire on Tuesday,:
Let’s be absolutely clear about what’s happening in Europe: among some of our European friends, I’m afraid, you are starting to see in some places the signs of a second wave of the pandemic.
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Britain signs deal for 60m doses of vaccine
Good morning and welcome to the Guardian’s live blog coverage of coronaviru-related events in the UK.
It’s a day when authorities in England are expected impose new quarantine restrictions on arrivals from at least two more European countries as what appears to be a new wave of Covid-19 makes its way across continental Europe
On another front, the British government has signed a deal with the pharmaceutical firms GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Sanofi Pasteur for 60m doses of a potential Covid-19 vaccine.
If the vaccine proves successful, the UK could begin to vaccinate priority groups, such as frontline health and social care workers and those at increased risk from coronavirus, as early as the first half of next year, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said.
Human clinical studies of the vaccine will begin in September followed by a phase 3 study in December. Ministers have signed deals for four different types of potential vaccines and a total of 250m doses. The business secretary Alok Sharma said:
Our scientists and researchers are racing to find a safe and effective vaccine at a speed and scale never seen before. While this progress is truly remarkable, the fact remains that there are no guarantees.
In the meantime, it is important that we secure early access to a diverse range of promising vaccine candidates, like GSK and Sanofi, to increase our chances of finding one that works so we can protect the public and save lives.
This is Ben Quinn. You can reach me on email or on Twitter at @BenQuinn75
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